Many people go to Schubas for the music, and they should. However, I’ve been going to this music hot spot most Sunday evenings not for music, but for stand-up comedy. At 9pm (roughly), comedians Prescott Tolk and James Fritz host Your Sunday Best in the upstairs bar. It starts off with a showcase of some of Chicago’s finest stand-up talent followed by an open mic. Best of all, it’s totally FREE. That’s right you can sit, drink beer, and watch comedians who have appeared or will appear on late night TV. You drink enough beer then you might even sign up and try some of those funny ideas you got ruminating. As a special bonus you might catch myself or fellow metroblogger Dan Telfer making with the ha ha’s. Tell you what I’ll even give you a sample filmed by The Bastion editor Elizabeth McQuern:

Posted in Events | Comments Off on Because we all could use some free stand-up comedy…

On December 23rd Gerald Richardson crashed his minivan into the WLS-Ch. 7 studios on State Street in the middle of a live news broadcast. In case you missed it, here is anchor Ravi Baichwal’s priceless reaction:

Around Christmastime the paper guys had cards printed and sold them to us little paper guys for a nickel apiece. They read something like this:

Christmas comes but once a yearWhen it comes it brings good cheerSo open your heart without a tearAnd remember the newsie standing here.

That got them, every time. Especially if there was a light fall of snow. And the swindle in the card routine was this: After he’d paid for the verse and would be thinking he owned it, you’d have to tell him no, it was your only card, you just wanted him to see the sentiment on it, it had cost you a nickel, so please mister could you have it back?

So Nobody’s Business has the story today (brought to wider attention by BoingBoing) of a flyer on the City of Chicago’s website urging us all to turn Stasi on each other and report behavior that is… well, that’s either so common as to be useless — “note taking, binocular use, cameras, video, maps” (so all tourists are terrorists?) — or so blindingly obviously bad-guyish that a three-year-old would know it should be reported. Like, say. “Attempts to improperly acquire explosives, weapons, ammunition, dangerous chemicals, etc.” Yeah, you think that might be cause for concern?

I’m wondering, though, if anyone’s actually seen one of these around town? Or would it have just moldered on the City’s website if the blogs weren’t all pointing and laughing?

And seriously, that flier’s ugly. If we’re going to have government fear-mongering, can’t it at least be well-designed?

I met David Blixt in the summer of 2004, during rehearsals for Defiant Theatre’s final show, A Clockwork Orange. David provided the fight choreography. I recall his hair hung down to his shoulders in lazy curls, and he wore leather boots that laced most of the way up the calf. He looked as if he’d just come from a Renaissance Fair. During breaks David would crack open a laptop and start typing. I asked him once what he was working on, and he informed me that he was writing a book about the origins of the feud behind Romeo and Juliet. Of course he was, I thought. That’s exactly what a Ren Fair geek would write about.

So, that 0.93 percent chance? Yeah, not so much anymore. Kyle Orton’s return to the starting line-up was uninspiring, the offensive line just keeps getting older, and the receivers are still dropping too many balls. On the plus side, Nathan Vasher’s return to the defense after two months nursing an injured groin provided a much-needed spark, and Brian Urlacher played like the monster we all know and love. But if you go plus-3 in turnovers and still can’t win the game there is something wrong.

Two meaningless games left. The only thing keeping this season interesting is hoping the New England Patriots make the ’72 Dolphins shut up and sit down, already. Thankfully, Chicago has other sports teams. How are the Bulls doing these days?

That is to say, a 0.93 percent chance &#8212 at least, according to Sports Club Stats, a fascinating website sent to us by an alert reader. Through a dizzying array of algorithms Ken Roberts calculates the probability of your favorite sports team going all the way. Or even how well they might do next week. And by “your favorite sports team,” I mean ANY professional team in the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, auto racing &#8212 even the Barclays Premier League, for all you Manchester United fans out there.

I must say, 0.93% sounds entirely accurate. And speaking of the Bears…(more…)

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